Moonlight and Ashes (42 page)

‘Give me the strength to go on,’
he prayed, and lay there waiting for an answer. The only thing he heard was his mother singing along to Vera Lynn on the radio downstairs.

 

Later in the afternoon, Maggie wrapped up warmly and headed for the train station with a letter to the twins tucked deep in her pocket. She posted it in the first letter box that she came to, and then hurried on towards the station, where she purchased a one-way ticket to Pwllheli for the following Monday. She had barely ventured out of the house since moving in with Beryl, and was shocked to see that the city centre had been almost razed to the ground. The saddest sight of all was the once-beautiful Cathedral in ruins, all apart from its spire, which reached proudly up into the sky as if in defiance. The tram system was wrecked - the lines ripped from the ground or arched into the air in grotesque mangled shapes. Shops were flattened, including Maggie’s favourite store, Owen and Owen. A major sewage system had been destroyed, and the smell hung in the air, making her wrinkle her nose. Thousands of people were homeless, and yet the mood of the rescuers and troops who were still digging amongst the rubble was one of camaraderie.

Only the day before, when Mr Massey had paid them a visit at Beryl’s, he told them that, although twenty-seven factories had been hit, and 75 per cent of the city’s war output had been seriously damaged, production had already restarted. Maggie found it incredible. It was as if the people of Coventry were saying, ‘We’re down, but not defeated.’ She wished with all her heart that some of their fighting spirit could rub off on her, but as yet the pain of losing Lucy and her mother was still too raw.

However, the train ticket tucked deep in the pocket of her coat did make her feel slightly better as she began the homeward journey. In just a few short days she would see her children, hold them in her arms again. Right now, the thought of Lizzie and Danny was all that was keeping her going and she could hardly wait.

Eric arrived home only minutes after Danny to find him slumped in the chair, absently fondling Samson’s ears.

‘What’s wrong with you then?’ he enquired as he stamped the snow from his boots. ‘You’ve got a face as long as a fiddle. Was the sledge no good?’

‘Oh yes,’ Danny hastened to assure him. ‘The sledge is great. It’s just . . .’

‘Just what?’

Danny hung his head as Eric frowned. The boy had seemed so happy when he’d left him with Gus down in the village. What could have happened to make him so down? It suddenly occurred to him - Lizzie. Danny had been about to call for her when they parted. He didn’t mind betting Mrs Evans had stopped him from seeing her again, hence the glum face.

‘Look, how about we have something to eat and then do some work on that landscape you’re doing?’ he suggested.

Danny instantly looked perkier as he glanced towards his small easel where his latest picture was proudly displayed. It was a lovely winter scene of the forest that could be seen from the kitchen window, and was easily his best effort yet, as Eric had told him. Danny was hoping to get it finished for when his mother eventually came to visit so that he could give it to her as a gift.

Hopping off the chair, he grinned. ‘All right then. I’ll set the table, shall I?’

Eric nodded and set about preparing them some Spam fritters and mash. With HP Sauce, it went down a treat. They had a bit of swiss roll and evaporated milk for afters. As Eric put the kettle on for a cup of tea, it began to snow again.

‘Oh dear. If this keeps up we’re going to be completely snowed in soon,’ he said.

‘We could always dig ourselves out,’ Danny suggested.

Eric laughed. ‘What - all the way down to the bottom of the hill? I don’t think we’d make it, somehow. Not to worry, I’ve got plenty of food in if the worst comes to the worst. It can’t snow forever, can it?’

As Danny watched him, it occurred to him how much nicer Eric was than his own father. He thought of Sam and shivered; he’d always been afraid of him and the house in Clay Lane was a much happier place when he was out of it. For a second, the young boy wondered what it would have been like, if Eric had been his father . . .

Then he found himself wondering what it would be like to live here in summertime, with the trees green and all the open spaces to romp in. When he had first arrived, he’d found the vast hillside a little isolated and remote, yet now he had become used to the sound of the night creatures, and as for the branches that tapped at his window in the night wind - he now found them strangely soothing, rather than scary.

By the time they’d finished working on Danny’s painting, darkness was falling. They’d been so immersed in what they were doing that the fire had burned low.

‘Look, you get your palette and brushes cleaned while I go and fill the log box, eh?’ Eric suggested as he rose stiffly from his seat. ‘I might let Samson stretch his legs as well, while I’m at it. I shouldn’t be more than half an hour or so. Will you be all right?’

‘Course I will,’ Danny said, standing back to admire his painting. It was almost finished now and he could just imagine the look on his mam’s face when he gave it to her.

Eric shrugged on a thick overcoat and boots, then lifting the empty log box from the hearth he called Samson to heel and headed for the back door. An icy blast whipped into the room when he opened it and Danny shuddered.

I’m glad I ain’t a tramp as has to sleep out in this, he thought to himself as he cleaned his brushes and carefully packed them away. He looked around the room. It wasn’t what anyone would have classed as tidy in here. There were some very nice pieces of furniture stood against the walls, but they were dull from lack of polish and not positioned to show them off to their best advantage. A sudden thought occurred to the boy. Why not have a good tidy-up while Eric was gone? There’d be no harm in keeping in his good books.

He rushed around collecting up all the dirty cups and plates that were strewn about the room and washed them up, then he began to tidy the sofa. It was while he was doing this that he found a newspaper stuffed down behind one of the cushions. He was about to fling it on the fire when a headline caught his eye and he paused mid-step:
COVENTRY BLITZED
. Sinking onto the nearest chair, he checked the date: 14 November 1940. Feverishly, he began to read, and as his eyes flew across the lines, a feeling of panic gripped him. According to the paper, Coventry had suffered a massive raid that had smashed the Cathedral to the ground. Worse still though was the fact that it told of numerous factories, shops, restaurants, cafés and whole streets of houses being flattened too.

What if his mam’s house had been amongst them? What if anything had happened to his mam or Lucy? And why hadn’t Eric told him about it, instead of hiding the paper behind a cushion? Even as the thoughts were racing around in his head, the door opened and Eric appeared. He was laughing at Samson, who was covered in snow, and turned to remark on him to Danny, but one look at the lad’s face made the words lodge in his throat. His eyes fell to the newspaper in his hand and he silently cursed himself for forgetting to get rid of it as colour flamed in his cheeks.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about what had happened back at home?’ Danny asked accusingly.

Eric took a faltering step towards him. ‘I wanted to,’ he told him, ‘but I didn’t know what to do for the best. I . . . I didn’t want you to worry.’

‘But somethin’ might have happened to me mam or Lucy.’ Danny’s voice was strangled with terror. ‘I have to know that they’re both all right.’

‘Of course you do.’ Eric sought about in his mind for a solution to the problem before finally suggesting, ‘What about if we write to her tonight? I could walk down to the village and post it first thing in the morning then. You could come with me, if you like.’

‘That’s no good,’ Danny shot at him. His head wagged from side-to-side, setting his fair curls, which Eric now noticed were in desperate need of a cut, dancing around his ears. ‘It will take days to get there, an’ then days for a reply to come back -
if
she’s all right, that is. I need to know she’s all right,
now
!’

To Eric’s horror, tears suddenly flooded into the child’s eyes and raced down his cheeks unchecked. Without stopping to think, he covered the distance between them and wrapped him in his arms.

‘Oh, Danny. I’m so
very
sorry. I just didn’t know what to do for the best. I’m sure that if anything
had
happened to your family, we would have heard by now.’

Danny angrily pushed him away. Crossing his arms, he turned his back on Eric as a scowl settled across his face. Somehow, he
had
to know!

The atmosphere in the kitchen was strained for the rest of the evening. Danny refused his meal and Eric was almost relieved when the boy finally declared he was going to bed, for he had no idea how he could help him.

Once upstairs, Danny stood by his bedroom window and gazed across the snow-covered trees to the sea in the distance. A silver moon was riding high in the sky and the ocean looked for all the world as if it had been sprinkled with fairy dust. It held no charm whatsoever for Danny tonight, however, for his mind was back in Coventry with his family.

It was as he was standing there that an idea occurred to him. Once Eric had retired to his room he would go and see Soho Gus.
He’d
know what to do. Hastily crossing to his bed, Danny slipped beneath the cold white sheets fully dressed, and then he waited.

At last he heard Eric’s tread on the stairs. The man paused outside his room, and Danny screwed his eyes up tight, pretending to be asleep, but tonight he didn’t come in. Eventually, Danny heard him move on along the landing, followed by the sound of his bedroom door opening and closing. Breathing a sigh of relief, Danny sneaked out of bed and once more crossed to the moonlit window. It looked very beautiful and also very cold out there, so he pulled another pair of socks across the pair he already had on and took his biggest, warmest jumper out of his drawer and donned that too. Creeping to the door, he inched it open and listened. When he was satisfied that all was quiet, he crept along the landing and silently descended the stairs. Once inside the kitchen he stroked Samson and yanked on his Wellington boots before struggling into his warm coat and wrapping his scarf around his neck. Then at the door he paused to look back. He suddenly felt very guilty for running off like this, but what choice did he have?

The sound of the bolt as he drew it back seemed to echo around the room and his heart raced as he listened for any sounds from above. Thankfully all was quiet so he stepped out into the bitterly cold night, drawing the door to behind him. It closed with a loud click. The freezing air seemed to slap him in the face and his breath floated in great lacy plumes in front of him as he stole around to the front of the house. He looked back just once when he reached the lane that led downhill and was filled with sadness as he saw the light in Eric’s bedroom window shining out into the darkness. He had already made his decision. Somehow, he was going to make his way back to Coventry. Gus could come and tell Eric where he had gone in the morning. At least that way, Eric would know where he was.

Pausing, he suddenly realised that he should have brought some money with him. Would the measly amount he had saved be enough for his train fare home? He doubted it, and anyway, to go back now might be pushing his luck and might lead to him being caught out. Shrugging his shoulders he moved tentatively on, glad of the moon that momentarily lit the way when it sailed from behind the clouds. More than once he missed his footing and went headlong into the frozen snow, but he was a determined child, and now that he’d made his mind up, there was no going back.

By the time he reached
Derwen Deg
, Danny was breathless and frozen through, but his determination never wavered for a second, nor would it now until he knew that his mam and his baby sister were safe.

The farmhouse was in darkness as Danny crept around to the back of it, praying that the dogs wouldn’t bark. Luckily, they knew him now and came from their kennels to lick his hand as he stroked them. Gazing up at the dark windows, Danny tried to remember which one was Gus’s.

‘I’m forever crackin’ me bloomin’ ’ead on the beam in my room,’ he recalled Gus saying, which meant he was probably in the end one. ‘An’ the soddin’ pigs keep me awake half the night wiv their snufflin’.’

The end one overlooked the pigsties. Danny moved across the yard like a ghost, his eyes sweeping this way and that until at last he was beneath the window that he hoped was Gus’s. Now another problem faced him: how was he going to alert Gus without waking the whole house?

Bending, he scooped some snow up and, after forming it into a neat snowball, he tossed it up at the window. It hit the glass but slithered down it almost soundlessly. That was no good. Looking around, he saw a large, long handled pitchfork leaning against the barn wall. He discovered that, if he stood on tiptoe, he could just about reach up and tap the glass with it. His first attempt went pathetically wrong; he overbalanced and landed in an undignified heap in the farmyard. Struggling back to his feet he brushed the worst of the snow from his clothes before trying again, and this time he succeeded in tapping on the window. Within seconds a light clicked on in the room beyond, and the next moment, Gus’s sleepy face appeared through a crack in the curtains. When he made out Danny standing in the yard, his mouth gaped open in amazement.

Lifting the sash-cord window as quietly as he could, he leaned out and hissed, ‘What the bleedin’ ’ell are you doin’ ’ere at this time o’ night?’

‘Come on down - I need to talk to you,’ Danny whispered urgently. The window closed and Gus disappeared as Danny stood there shivering with his arms wrapped around himself.

Moments later, Gus appeared around the side of the farmhouse and taking Danny’s elbow he led him into the barn, where the cattle were sleeping. ‘Right then, spit it out. It must be somefing bad fer yer to be up an’ about at this unearfly ’our, mate.’